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Koptalk’s Goodbye to Robbie Fowler – “Shut the Door on Your Way Out”
August 11th, 2006

by Rupert Insider

On the afternoon of Wednesday, the 28th November, 2001, Liverpool Football Club announced that terms had been agreed for the transfer of Robbie Fowler to Leeds United.It was probably the biggest outward transfers in the history of the club. But Koptalk failed to predict it. It’s “Anfield Mole” had gone up a blind alley again.(Edit: In fact, it was worse than that. Only a couple of days earlier Oldham confidentally predicted that despite all the rumours, Fowler would not be leaving LFC because Fowler had called him and told him so. Scroll down to “The Day Oldham Dreamed Fowler called Him”.This was a barefaced lie of the kind only Oldham can tell. Only he had no idea that it would rear up an bite him in the bum so quickly).Within a couple of hours of the public announcement of Fowler’s transfer to Leeds, Duncan Oldham, the self-styled “Editor” of Koptalk published a mocking editorial entitled “Shut the Door on Your Way Out”.His site received more hits that day than at any other time, before or since. We know from many sources – including a published interview with Jamie Redknapp – that Robbie was devastated, distraught and in tears as he said goodbye to his team mates and the staff at Melwood and Anfield he had known since he was fifteen years of age as a contract player and 11 years of age before that. Houllier had not given him a chance to say goodbye to his loyal fans on the Kop.It could not have helped him to know that the Editor of the largest supporters’ fan site (as it was at that time) was celebrating his departure with the spiteful cry “good riddance to bad rubbish”.But there was more to come.When Peter Risdale, the Executive Director of Leeds United, announced that his club’s medicals would take a day to complete, Oldham was quick to explain that what Risdale really meant was that Fowler would be subjected to rigorous tests for drug and alcohol abuse – so the transfer might not yet happen. When Friday brought the news that Robbie had passed the medical tests with flying colours, Oldham did not then concede the flip-side of his argument – that the extra-stringent tests refuted the slander and lies about Fowler, alcohol and drugs that Oldham had been peddling for more than two years.He just shifted the direction of the attack.The transfer fee was £11 million, somewhat less than Liverpool’s presumed asking price of £15 and less than the £12 million Chelsea was thought to have offered earlier that year. Oldham offered an “inside” spin that the actual fee was nearer £8 million, with additional monies to be paid only after certain appearance and performance thresholds, which, he said, Fowler would not be able to reach. He went on to say that the £11 million was merely a face-saving figure. It amounted to humiliation for Fowler considering that Owen would fetch offers in the £40-50 million ranges from European teams.Well we all know what codswallop all that turned out to be!A contributor to the Wikipaedia entry on LFC states what many believe – that while Gerard Houllier acted as though he was an admirer of Fowler’s character and talents he simultaneously orchestrated a PR campaign to force him out of the club. Chris Bascombe of the Liverpool Echo has written retrospectively on Houllier’s manipulative tactics with respect to Fowler. And Fowler, himself, has dealt with it in his recent autobiography.There are some who suggest that in 1999-2001 Koptalk aligned itself with the alleged Houllier’s strategy to weaken the hold Fowler had on the affections of the supporters and the Board of Directors.Certainly, Koptalk’s forums were dominated by articulate anti-Fowler posters who seemed to regard themselves as Houllier’s little-helpers. Many of them also related their anti-Fowler stance to their support of Michael Owen. They regarded Fowler as the injured but recovering “rival” to their favourite, both in the LFC and England squads.But that was their prerogative as fans – to express opinions – and, to be fair; there was a minority on Koptalk who tried to oppose the dominant view.But this blog is not about Koptalk’s posters, it is about Duncan Oldham. And we know he had no dealings with Houllier or Owen or anyone at Anfield. So what were his motives for his personal anti-Fowler campaign?For a reply, look no further than what he said on his site last week – that in “this lark” of running a web site his motive is “always to look after No.1”.And that’s what this blog post is about – not about the merits of the Houllier-Fowler conflict – but about some of the ways Oldham sought to make money from it.
I’d like to take you back to July 2000, to the Moat House hotel on Paradise Street in Liverpool. That’s where Robbie was assaulted in the lobby toilet by two guys. But that is the subject of PART 2 which will be posted in a couple of days!!

PART 2I’d like to take you back to July 2000, to the Moat House hotel on Paradise Street in Liverpool.That’s where Robbie was assaulted in the lobby toilet by two guys. One of them was in his late thirties, and he was subsequently sent to jail after being convicted of badly injuring Robbie’s face.Most genuine editors would know better than to endanger the prospect of a fair trial by speculating about circumstances of the evidence against the accused. But Oldham is not a genuine editor. He rummaged about like a wino in a dumpster. Perhaps it was a cocaine deal gone wrong, he speculated, perhaps extortionists who had something on Robbie.And when that hit-generating muck-raking was proven false by the trial he kept it going with “editorials” about the danger of Fowler’s habit of hanging about in bad company. He constantly cited the “spice-boys” myth as evidence that Houllier still had some clearing-out to do.Have a look at the photo of the Moat House hotel as it was at that time.

You can see the restaurant. It opened out into the hotel’s small lobby. There are a couple of bar-stools and small tables on the right. That’s where Robbie, and Steve McManaman and several of their friends, usually reserve team players, used to sit, tell stories and sip a beer from a bottle or a soft drink once or twice a week. They usually arrived at about 6.30 and left between 8 or 9, although on the night of the assault they were there later.

They sat right there, as you see in the photo, practically in the hotel lobby, among the hotel guests and diners – with families milling around. The kids and parents would go over to ask for autographs or to pose for photos and the shyer ones would wait for Robbie or Steve as they made their way into the lobby and along the corridor that led to the toilet where Robbie was attacked.

Why did they use the Moat House hotel? It was not posh. In USA terms it was comparable to a small Howard Johnson – actually more like a motel. In the next few years, Liverpool would see the rapid growth in first class hotels, restaurants, clubs and bars – but in 2001 and 2002 there were very few.

And as basic as it was then, the Moat House, was frequently hired by LFC for social events, or to provide “day rooms” when the squad were due elsewhere downtown and needed a place to assemble or change. Young players arriving at the club or those on trial were sometimes boarded there. The staff members in the hotel were very familiar with the goings and comings of LFC players. For Robbie it had something of a family atmosphere where he was among friends. (The Moat House was also used by Everton FC for similar purposes. Duncan Ferguson lived there for several months the first time he arrived.)

The hotel was located in the heart of the Liverpool shopping district, across the street from the BBC studios, between the bus station and a car park, and a few yards from the MacDonald’s on the Lord Street shopping precinct. (The Moat House hotel has now been demolished).

It was a million miles away from the kind of swish, dimly-lit, cocaine-ridden night clubs associated with Chelsea players, for example, or the drug culture in the Manchester clubs were United players hung out. Only someone like Oldham, a stranger to Liverpool, and known to be contemptuous of Liverpudlians, could describe the place or the company as bad. It was not a place for “spice boys” – more like a diner for the boys from the neighborhood.

Move forward, to June 2001 and five minutes walk away to the Wonder Bar on Slater Street.

That’s where Robbie was attacked again at 2 am in the morning. He had been visiting the club with a couple of family friends and his partner Kerrie, whom he was to marry the following week.

Both LFC and Houllier said the next day that Robbie was a blameless victim in that incident. But on KT there was the usual nudge-nudge, wink-wink, know- what- I- mean. It was another piece of ceramic in the “spice boys” mosaic which was Oldham’s and the tabloids frame of reference.

Anyone familiar with Liverpool will know that at any given time 50% or more of bystanders are Everton supporters. In the wee small hours, and while under the influence, some of them will act out a kind of tribal rage that Fowler – an Evertonian when he was a small kid – betrayed them by becoming part of the schoolby set up at LFC when he was eleven 11 and signing when he was fifteen.

So why did he visit the town centre in the evening? Mainly because he was born and raised in Toxeth – less than a mile away. His father and his uncles and other members of his family worked there or close by in the docks. It was home. Where else would he go?

It’s not difficult, therefore, to understand why Fowler and McManaman and many other

players began to visit the new restaurants and bars in the Albert Dock, ten minute walk from the Moat House hotel. The Dock was on the bank of the River Mersey: it was quiet and out of the way: it had its own security guards: it was in the same complex as the appartments where several of the LFC players lived – including their close friend Jamie

Redknapp. Back in 2001 it was not so well-known and not as well-established as a hang-out for celebrities, but in time Houllier dined there and sports journalists who covered LFC, like David Maddock of The Mirror, and players like Fowler and McManaman and Redknapp. When Anelka came to LFC, his agent-brother got a job there as a DJ. Nowadays you might even see Rafa there from time to time or Alonso, Sissoko or other players.

PART 3In 2001 Koptalk was probably the largest of the unofficial supporter sites at the time. Oldham claimed that it sometimes got as many as 10 million hits a month. He also claimed in a so-called editorial in 2002, that his technique of “picking on” a single player i.e. Fowler, helped him generate as many as 2 million hits a month on the forums, alone.A very large part of Oldham’s commercial “success” was based on his false claim to be an “Insider” at Anfield, Melwood and the Academy and to be constantly in touch with other “Insiders”. Not to put to fine a point on it – he sold information. Much if it was given away on his free forums, but only to generate a market for it. Having whetted the appetite of the freeloaders, he then held back on the really juicy stuff. He urged everyone to pay to become an “Insider”, like him, or a VIP – one of the few – and to call back several times a day on premium-rated phone lines for “updates”.Usually he made up the information or relied on a fictitious Informer and his friend Horse, Guru and an Anfield Mole and Wallet as well as on other fantasist and blaggers who joined in the “game”.

In those day’s, KopTalk was dominated by users who were obsessed with Fowler and believed that he should be kept out of the LFC and England team. Most of them were from the South of England. Some of them met up to watch LFC matches in a pub near Liverpool Street in London. Many of the most vocal frequently referred to Fowler’s “unprofessional” lifestyle and conduct in Liverpool. Oldham and a select few of Koptalk’s more dedicated Fowler-bashers were part of a confidential email ring – they even tried and failed to recruit me to it. I got one about the now infamous arrival of Sol Sanderson for transfer talks with Houllier – you know the talks during the weekend when Houllier was out of the UK and Sol Sanderson was in London preparing to sign a new contract with Arsenal in the next 24-48 hours.

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Oldham would use whatever information he got to reinforce his claim that he had “exclusive” and “inside” information about Fowler. As banal as the information was, it contributed to the myth that Oldham was trying to create, that he was part of the inner circle at LFC, a buddy and a drinking partner of the players, a member of their exclusive clubs and privy to their thoughts. He says as much explicitly in some of his “editorials” that the blog has on file. Oldham saw his hits rising sharply with every alleged “revelation” about Robbie Fowler. It brought in real money – advertising revenue – and new paying members to the “Insider”. He came to depend on the income. In fact he began to act as though Fowler was his very own business asset to be exploited. Instead of saying what Robbie had done last night, Oldham would post on KT that Robbie had just arrived wherever, right now. The problem was that Robbie was not at these bars as often as Oldham said – in fact not often at all. Some Liverpool users of Koptalk spotted this. Oldham’s solution was to widen his surveillance. Oldham’s need to know what Fowler was doing had become chronic. He needed to appear all-knowing, all-seeing – the spider at the centre of a shadowy web of informants. He was building a business model on that very concept.

And Koptalk became the place to go if you were interested in gossip about Robbie Fowler, whether you were a genuine fan of his, a basher or a lazy tabloid reporter looking for an idea for a salacious story. And wherever Fowler was – whether having a sandwich and beer in the afternoon in a quiet pub in the small town of Prescot close to the home of his wife’s parents, or in a restaurant in Formby near his family home or downtown with other players – it was reported on KT. And the insinuation was usually that if Fowler was in a restaurant he must have been drinking and if he was in a pub he must have been drinking to excess.

Oldham often says that this or that piece of information he has would be worth thousands of pounds if sold to the tabloids – he said it again a couple of weeks ago. He says it so often you have to wonder if he knows the market price of information precisely because he is active in that market – as seller. We know he never pays.

Certainly, there were instances in 2000/2001 when KT allegations about Fowler would then appear in the tabloids. Did Oldham sell it to them? Or did he pass it on for free in the hope of getting a quote praising KT that he could then use as a banner headline on his site? Would his supplying the tabloids explain his opposition to the boycott of the S** – his wearing their promotional hat and using their stories? I don’t know, but there are reasonable grounds for suspicion. I’ll cite one of them.

It was on Tuesday 2nd October 2001 – four days before England’s crucial World Cup qualifying match at old Trafford against Greece – in which Beckham scored with a last minute free kick. Steve Gerrard, Robbie Fowler and Steve McManaman had been selected for the squad. It was an opportunity for Fowler to re-establish himself in the national team.

About 7-8 pm on that Tuesday evening, Oldham made a post on Koptalk that Fowler and McManaman were at that very moment in the Living Room bar-restaurant in Liverpool. It’s a favourite haunt of some LFC players.

Within hours, in time for the early morning editions, the Koptalk revelation was picked up by the tabloids. The Daily Express went with a worse-case scenario. It said that the two players were out drinking only eleven hoursbefore they were to join the England squad – not before the match, mind you – eleven hoursbefore they were to join the squad.

This was followed in other tabloids by the usual fuss about the “Liverpool spice-boys” letting down England.

In fact, McManaman had just arrived in Liverpool from Real Madrid and was touching base with Fowler – his life-long friend and business partner. They had an evening meal at the restaurant and left early about 9.30 according to the author of a leading article on The Liverpool Way, whose cousin was with the players in the restaurant.

Sven Eriksson, who has strict rules about drinking before any match, dismissed the story, and included both players in his team the following Saturday.

Meanwhile on KT, on the Wednesday, Oldham was excited that he had scooped the tabloids the previous evening on the Fowler-McManaman “story”. He boasted that the nationals got it from him. He might have meant that they had got it from monitoring his site, which in itself would have been flattering, but he implied that he gave it to them or sold it.

However the “story” was conveyed to the nationals, it subjected Fowler to the kind of negative controversy he could have done without in his attempt to help England qualify for the World Cup and, in the process, reinstate him in the national team. The Fowler-bashers on KT were delighted.

But there was an unexpected glitch. On the same Wednesday and again on the Thursday, the national media reported that Steve Gerrard was at a vodka bar in Southport until 2 am – that is on the same Tuesday night that Fowler and MacMannman were in the Liverpool restaurant and Gerrard had already apologized to Erikson with the explanation that he had drunk only alcapops.

Oldham claimed he had been fully aware of the Gerrard story, too, on the Tuesday, but decided to suppress it and send the press after Fowler in order to “protect” Gerrard. In this explanation he gave himself away as to how he saw his role as manipulator of the news, as informer to the tablioids and with a bias against Fowler.

His explanation also sounds like typical Oldham second-guessing and after-the fact rationalization – and an unwillingness to admit he did not know what others knew. Perhaps he simply did not know the Gerrard stories. But that said, he did suppress other negative stories about Gerrard. Those stories – known to some people on Merseyside – would have been more damaging to Gerrard, if they were true, than the stories about Fowler’s lifestyle and conduct were to Fowler. The difference is that they never saw the light of day on Koptalk.

Oldham was also very thorough in suppressing negative stories and comment about Owen’s lifestyle and conduct.

We know that Oldham is motivated by money and those Gerrard and Owen stories would have generated traffic. So why didn’t he use them?

I don’t know. My only suggestion is that Oldham was still beholden to Koptalk’s majority and had to respect their wish to protect their two favourites – Gerrard and Owen. In the case of the Owen stuff – it might also have been that Owen’s lawyers were more proactive than Fowler’s.

But it was all going to his head. He began to demand respect and acceptance by the established media. He was, after all, the sole owner of what he liked to call “The World’s No. 1 Football Site”. He forced his attentions on journalists, offering to peddle gossip about Fowler.

One of his first targets was David Maddock of the Mirror. It was a strange relationship. Even while Oldham was trying to ingratiate himself with Maddock he used the contact to suggest to Koptalk readers that Maddock was one of his informants. He wrote an entire editorial in which he tried to demonstrate that Maddock had initiated the contact and supplied him with information about Fowler.

Having his cake and eating it is one of Oldham’s favourite techniques so in the same editorial he suggested that he would be skeptical of Maddock’s intentions. This was a sop to the articulate anti-Fowler posters on KT. They had learned that Maddock sometimes socialized with Fowler and McManaman in Liverpool. They could not tolerate that he sometimes wrote sympathetic treatments about Fowler. They began a campaign to dismiss all Maddock’s reports as being tainted by his contact with Fowler. Houllier also made an aggressive remark about Maddock during a press conference.

While I am not privy to private goings-on, my understanding is that David Maddock cut the contacts with Oldham pretty quickly back then in 2001/2002, contrary to Oldham’s recent insinuation that he remains a member of the Gold Club and continues to be an informant. Subsequently, Maddock became the co-author of Robbie Fowler’s autobiography.

Oldham also tried to bully members of the Merseyside media establishment. He wanted to plug into their information and their sources, and ride piggy-back on their official access LFC. Then he would claim that his unwelcome advances on them gave him some kind of street cred – like a mugger claiming to be an acquaintance of the toff he had tried to rob on the basis that they had both been involved in the same robbery. He insinuated that because he had called local journalistes in a blustering and bullying manner on the telephone, they were his informants, too, and he theirs.

He got short shrift from the professionals. A leading member of the local media, Chris Bascombe of The Liverpool Echo, felt it necessary in 2001 to disassociate from Koptalk. In the Football Echo he publicly dismissed its veracity, referring to it contemptuously as “Koptalk or Kop Chat“.

Oldham’s response was that they were just “locals” – he was already in the business of dealing with the “nationals”.

But for Oldham, the final justification is money. It didn’t matter that he was rejected by the local media. He would just keep stealing their product, as he does to this day. He sells it as EXCLUSIVE NEWS AND WHISPERS FROM INSIDE ANFIELD MELWOOD AND THE ACADEMY.

All of Oldham’s obsessive stalking of Robbie Fowler and the hits and money it was bringing and the attention from the tabloids, led him to fantasize that without any training in journalism, without any job experience, without any work, he had become an Investigative Reporter and an Editor and a Publisher. And so, to cap it all, he would also become an Author.

In true S** style, the book would be a muck-raker – “Anfield Exposed”. It would, of course, be the insider story on Fowler, but the star of the book would be Oldham – the Persecuted Christ of the Internet – the representative of ordinary fans on earth and how he had been worked over by the “suits”.

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And what became of Oldham’s anti-Fowler campaign? Oh that! It died the moment he stopped making money from it.

Fowler’s transfer to Leeds was an anti-climax for Oldham. The main Fowler-bashers on his site no longer needed him. They left KT en masse and went to other sites. His hits have never since returned to the high levels of those halcyon days.

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Earlier this year, when news of Robbie’s transfer to LFC became public, Oldham was caught flat-footed. He was probably the last to know again, just as he was the day Fowler left LFC.

Robbie’s return was enthusiastically received by the new generation of posters on KT, most of who did not know about Oldham’s past. This allowed the Artful Dodger to turn on a dime and welcome Robbie back. But on his internet broadcast – where he speaks a little more incautiously than he writes – he contemptuously dismissed him as no more than a mascot who did not make any real contribution to the team in the second half of last season. He preferred Cisse.

The nearest Oldham has come to apologizing for his stalking and slander of Fowler is to preach recently to his dwindling KT flock that Robbie Fowler was the victim of others who got him into scrapes and left him to take the blame. In other words he was a good natured simpleton manipulated by the evil McManaman and unnamed others.

Poor simple Robbie Fowler! He may be the richest sportsman in the UK as the result of his property empire and winning stables and he may be admired with affection by countless people all over the football world and he may be one of the legends of LFC, but how much he owes to the understanding and forgiveness of the wise old sage of Koptalk!

To hear him talk you wouldn’t believe Oldham was a little more than a year older than Robbie – 23 to 27 years of age when he was stalking the 22 to 26 year-old Fowler. And in the periods when Fowler was heavier than his ideal playing weight he still never reached half the weight of the heavy-eating, heavy drinking Oldham.

Oldham is now on the defensive. And you know what that means. He will hide behind his kids. And so he has taken to repeatedly reminding everyone that he named his own son Robbie – after Fowler. That’s the same son he also claims is a fan of Shearer and Newcastle.

If you are a supporter of Liverpool Football Club, you probably know Chris Bascombe. He writes for the Liverpool Echo. One of the most common phrases you read on net forums in periods of intense rumour and counter-rumour, is: “What does Chris Bascombe say?”For many he is the gold standard of journalism as far as LFC goes. He is known to be close to the club, by virtue of his job, but not so close as to be dependent. He has even been known to be critical. For example, he has written of his disgust at how he and many others were manipulated by Gerard Houllier over certain issues, especially about Robbie Fowler. But that’s another story.He is of interest to this blog because Duncan Oldham used to claim – prior to October 2001 – that he provided “inside” information to Chris Bascombe and received information from him.That all changed when Chris Bascombe wrote an article in the Pink Edition of the Football Echo in October 2001 dismissing KopTalk and its outrageous lie about Fowler.” Robbie only has to breathe these days and someone, somewhere is writing about him. This week when Robbie wasn’t even playing we saw another example of how, more than any other player, he is the target of rumour. I was sent an article in by a reader which appeared on an unofficial website, which I won’t name because it doesn’t deserve the free ad it probably wants (ok I will. Apparently it’s called Koptalk or Kopchat or something like that). They wrote an outrageous lie which dared to suggest that Robbie’s absence on Tuesday wasn’t because he was ill.As Robbie explained, “I woke up on Tuesday and felt really lousy and light-headed. I was about to come into training in the afternoon and I called the doc. The doctor came around to my house examined me and told me to go back to bed.”The story that Bascombe alluded to was a report by Oldham that Fowler had missed training because of a hangover. In fact, it turned out that he had a very serious chest infection.Oldham was furious, not so much because a respected journalist had called him a liar, but because he had been vague about the name of the site and the “look what the cat brought in” tone of his references to it.Oldham responded by establishing the domain “kopchat.com” to benefit from any enquiries that the Bascombe reference generated. He also responded on Koptalk several times. He claimed that Bascombe had been deliberately vague in order to deny him publicity. He proceeded to insult him in other ways that should be familiar to those of you who read my frequent updates of the long list of insulting names Oldham calls those who disagree with him.From that time on, Oldham pretended he did not know Bascombe’s name or who he was – and even today – five years later – when he steals Bascombe’s stories from the online version of the Liverpool Echo and Daily Post, he does not acknowledge the source or the author. Instead he claims that it is from his own exclusive sources “as confirmed by the local media”.Given this stand-off, how would Oldham continue to profit from his pre-2001 pretence that he and Bascombe were “colleagues” and “confidants” swapping “inside” information?Well you should know how. He would insinuate it. You’ve seen all his references as to how he picks up snippets from journalists in a pub, and how various journalists keep him posted about press conferences and events at Anfield and Melwood. He would also insinuate that Chris was a member of the Koptalk Gold Club. He would not correct the assumption of many in the Gold Club, that the poster “Lecter” was none other than Chris Bascombe.In this blog we encourage people to puncture Oldham’s con by communicating directly with the club, with players and with journalists whom he says or implies or part of his shadowy world.So yesterday I wrote to Chris Bascombe. I received a quick reply and an invitation to telephone and today we had a long chat.Chris Bascombe’s first words to me speak volumes: “Koptalk? Is that still around? I thought it was closed down years ago”.Need I say more?Since I sent my letter, Chris has read the blog and wants to be kept informed. It was good to chat with him about the issues touched on in the blog especially those of which he has first-hand knowledge. I don’t want to detail all our discussions but can summarize them as being that he appreciated the opportunity the blog has given him to put the record straight and he will be following the blog actively.In the meantime, he is aware that some of the contributors have been searching for his now famous “Kop Chat” reference and he will look it up and send it in. And by the way, it was deliberate!

Photo: Duncan (”Hitman”) Oldham, Executive Editor of the one-man Koptalk website and wannabe author of the book “Anfield Exposed” to be published 2004,2005, 2006, 2007 (maybe).

As revealed EXCLUSIVELY on this blog, Anfield will not be exposed in time for the entertainment of the kiddies at Christmas, despite Oldham’s promises that it would. But he has given us a peek at one of the central claims of his phantom book:

“* What really happened the night before Robbie Fowler’s shock move to Leeds and why did KopTalk insist on the eve of that transfer that he was not leaving when we knew he was”

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Let’s translate that from Oldhamspeak to the truth.

Less than two full days before LFC announced Fowler’s transfer to Leeds, Oldham wrote a story that Fowler was NOT leaving. He claimed that Robbie, himself, had telephoned to tell him.

He claimed it as a Kop Talk EXCLUSIVE.

It was the kind of exclusive information the public could rely on, he boasted, if they gave him money to be part of the Koptalk “Insider” . His was the only LFC related site that charged for news, rumours, gossip and made-up muck on LFC.

He was so cocky about his scoop that he mocked the “local journos” who were working on the basis that Fowler probably WAS leaving.

Now, in 2006, he says he lied back then and wants you to pay him upwards of ₤10 to find out why.

But that’s a lie, too, because he didn’t lie back then. He actually believed Fowler called him. He actually believed Robbie wasn’t talking to Leeds and was not about to transfer.

Oldham was duped by a prankster who knew how stupid he was and how desperate to print anything that suggested his site was read by players, especially Fowler.

Who, but an Oldham, would believe that LFC’s most popular player, whose future was the subject of intense discussion in the national and local media and on the streets of Liverpool, would break training, leave discussions with his agent, his lawyers, his family and life-long friends and circumvent the LFC Press Office and his friends in the national media to make a call to Oldham, a guy in Scarborough, Yorkshire whom he had never met or spoken to before in order to give him an EXCLUSIVE that he was NOT considering a transfer to Leeds and that he objected to a Koptalk poster calling him “fat”.

Despite his current shameless teaser for his phantom book, Oldham was still ignorant about Robbie’s transfer the night before it happened. In fact, his next piece following his EXCLUSIVE was after the announcement of the transfer had already been carried by all the unofficial sites and the mainstream press.

Scrambling to catch up with the rest the sports world he addressed a sneering “editorial” to the departing player: “Shut the door on your way out”.

He’s never lived it down. After all, he built his Koptalk “Insider” business on the claim that he was Fowler’s stalker and knew everything about him.

He even tried to sell made-up muck stories about Fowler to the S*n and other tabloids.

The Fowler transfer prankster exposed his fraud. If Oldham were genuinely informed about Fowler and if he were an “Insider” at LFC, as he repeatedly claimed, how could he have been so wrong about the most important event in Fowler’s LFC career and one of the most important outward transfers in the history of the club? How could he and his paying customers have been the last to know?

His howler was not good for business. That’s why he tried to re-write history in the above-quoted teaser for his phantom book.

But only a hard-faced conman like Oldham would have the nerve to come back in 2006 to the original “Insider” customers from 2001 and ask them to pay ₤10, or more, to read his trumped-up story.

He prefers to be called a liar than stupid, you see. So it was not that he was duped by a prankster back then – don’t you know – it was he who was lying to his readers.

In other words – I lied to you then so you can believe me now.

And to add insult to injury he has not written a word of the so-called book in the three years since he started taking deposits as advanced orders . If you’re one of those who paid him a ₤5 deposit , it looks like the “teasers” are all you’re going to get, and they are all self-serving advertisements for his dodgy site.

You’d be better off demanding your money back. He’ll pay you because his site is currently being monitored by a Trading Standards officer.

You can read Oldham’s original tall-tale about Fowler for yourself. Thanks to blog contributor Sawyer Insider we were able to retrieve it directly from the Koptalk archives for 23rd November 2001

I’ve reproduced it below and I’ve edited my comments from the first time I published it.

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Kop Talk News

23rd November 2001:

EXCLUSIVE:

Fowler – I’m not fat and there’s no deal with Leeds!

We can today reveal publicly for the first time that Liverpool and England striker Robbie Fowler is a reader of the site and in particular ourforums.

( Why only “today”? Oldham had claimed many times before that all LFC players, including Fowler, as well as His Holiness Pope John Paul II, read the KT forums. Surely he wasn’t fibbing was he?

Odd, too, that he thought it necessary to identify Fowler as “Liverpool and England striker”. Oh, THAT Robbie Fowler!

It was a strange style of writing for an allegedly LFC site addressing LFC supporters. It suggests that he was actually writing for another audience.

At that time he was constantly trying to sell made-up muck about Fowler to the S*n and other tabloids. His grovelling contact with “the nationals” as he called them, went to his head. He came to fancy himself as one of them – their man in Liverpool – not only a “journalist” but an “Editor” of his one-man site).

Robbie, known these days as ‘The Judge’ because of the amount of time he spends sat on the bench……..

(Known as that by whom – apart from the sneering Oldham?)

………made a frantic telephone call yesterday after reading some of the speculation on the forums about him.

( You can call Robbie many things, but frantic isn’t one of them! As for “Speculation on the forums” – Try “unrelenting abuse and false stories” from Oldham and his cronies – for more than two years!

But Oldham gave away his lie in that sentence. If Fowler had been a reader of the Koptalk forums he would not have discovered the abuse only “yesterday”.)

“I can’t believe somebody thinks I’m fat!”, laughed the Liverpool hitmanwho is desperate to regain his form which can only be achieved if given a proper run in the side.

(“Liverpool hitman” – I guess he borrowed that phrase from the ”underworld friends” he threatened to set on this blog recently.

“desperate to regain his form” – Like the hat-trick he had scored against Leicester a month earlier?

“laughed” – Do you laugh when you’re ”frantic”?)

The England international (remember him?) found it highly amusing when he discovered that one of our readers thinks he’s ‘fat’ but more seriously, he wanted our readers to know that he is not going to Leeds as was claimed by one of our readers yesterday.

(The “reader” said he met Fowler at a petrol pump. He had deduced from the conversation that Robbie would transfer to Leeds in a few days. Oldham was peeved that the reader posted the report on the Koptalk free forums rather than passing it on to him so he could sell it as “news and whispers” from an “Insider”).

It was claimed that a deal had been done for £10million and that he would make the switch in January. A simple prank by someone sparked off a frenzy of phone calls with local journos towing the line at Melwood yesterday having to explain that Robbie was indeed there and not at Leeds once the rumour mill had kicked in and the different versions starting circulating.

( You’d better take a breath here. Read the Editor’s mangled syntax of that sentence again to figure out what the poor man was trying to say.

When Oldham refers to “local journos” he means Chris Bascombe. Chris had embarrassed Oldham in the Liverpool Football Echo by a dismissive reference to “Kop Chat” when he nailed the “outrageous lie” Oldham had told – that Fowler had faked sickness to avoid training after he had been on a bender. So Oldham’s article was yet another clumsy attempt to get his revenge on Bascombe, whom he described as “towing the line” i.e. doing his professional duty by checking with LFC about Fowler’s possible transfer.

As for the “simple prank” that fooled the “journos”? Was it anything like the simple prank that a cheeky scouser was playing on Oldham by pretending to be Fowler – that’s if he received any phone call at all?

There were many who thought his hearing voices was symptom of paranoid delusion. He was always telling his readers in those days about what the voice of the “Guru” was telling him, and the “Mole” and the “Big Cheeses” and “Top Brass” and “Rick Parry” and “the Wallet”. As we now know – all these voices were his own. Not surprising, then ,that when the prankster called Oldham believed he was hearing the voice of “God” – no other than his stalking target – “Fowler”.

And while we’re at it, does anyone know if you “tow” the line with your big toe or your little toe?)

Naturally Kop Talk did not report the speculation because we knew it was crap and had it been true, our ‘Insider’ readers would have known first.

(“Naturally!”)

Robbie wanted our readers to know that he is not ‘fat’, indeed he insists that he’s the same weight now as he always has been (7 lb 8 ozs?) and he hasn’t been talking to Leeds. He’s hoping for a new contract at Anfield and he’s extremely grateful for the continued support he continues to receive from the fans.

(But not from Koptalk?

When the fool from Scarborough posted that nonsense, Robbie was in the final stages of his negotiations with Leeds. He would be transferred in less than two days. Oldham and the paying members of his Insider would be the last to know).

Subscribe to the ‘Insider’ online today or join by post within the next week for an update on Robbie’s transfer status and of course, all the other tit bits of interest concerning every Liverpool player. Join within the next week and we’ll see that any updates you have missed (such as today’s bumper update) are sent out to you upon request! If you have subscribed to the Insider online prior to 7pm last night (Thursday) and you have not received an update, please contact us immediately.

Have you subscribed to the ‘Insider’ yet?There could be more news on this article which we can’t publish on site

(These “tit bits” he referred to – was that the beginning of the now infamous KopTalk porno offerings?)

PS Since I first reproduced teh above article – Oldham has blocked access to the archives of the forums. I assume this is to prevent anyone demonstrating that he made no announcements “the night before”.

We were sent this article by email. It’s from an old issue of The Liverpool Way fanzine, from around 2001 / 2002. It talks about Duncan Oldham and how he lied about Robbie Fowler, how he had a go at Chris Bascombe, how he stole a photo from another site then tried to sue the person he stole from. Remember, this article was written four or five years ago, and somehow Oldham has been able to continue with his lies and his scams ever since. And as we saw in the summer with his treatment of Crouch and his words about Parry, he’s still happy to slur and abuse Liverpool players or officials to try and get more hits.

Last but by no means least is Duncan Oldham. Anyone who has access to the internet will almost certainly know of this individual. Those of you who don’t have access to it won’t have a clue, so allow me to give you a brief rundown on who he is. He lives in Scarborough, and he runs an unofficial LFC website which is responsible for regular doses of bullshit and anti-Robbie Fowler stories. He’s also tried his hand at several little money making scams through his site, and is someone who I would not piss on if he were on fire. I’m not going to name his website here because I’m not going to give it the plug that would make him happy. If you’re a regular on the net you’ll know it, and if you’re not then you don’t need to know it, so I won’t be mentioning it here.

I could fill the entire fanzine with gripes about Oldham and the way he runs his website, but I’ll try to just keep this to a minimum. The main reason for my inclusion of Oldham in this list stems from a ‘news’ item that appeared on his website about Fowler. Oldham seems to have a real axe to grind with Robbie, and barely a day seems to go by without some sort of story about Fowler appearing on his site. Apparently, most of his ‘exclusives’ come from a pal of his who runs a bar at the Albert Dock, which is a regular haunt of the players. In fact, Oldham and his buddy were indirectly responsible for the ‘Fowler/McManaman drinking storm’ before the England game. You know, when they were out until the wee small hours (it was actually half nine, I know this because my cousin was with them, she’s a good friend of Macca’s kid brother) and had consumed all of about two drinks before heading home?

Anyway, Oldham, under the guise of defending Stevie G (who the papers had slated for being out in Southport a full five days before a game), reported that two other England squad members – one a current reds player – had also been out on the ale that night. Now even a tabloid hack is smart enough to figure out who he was referring to, and lo and behold, the next day it’s picked up by all the papers, who up until then knew nothing about it. It provided them with a nice little follow up to the Stevie G nonsense they’d printed the day before. I think it’s only right that Robbie knows who ‘shopped’ him.

But that’s not even the ‘news’ item I was referring to. That came a few days later, when on October 8th (just before the Grimsby game), Oldham came up with his latest (and possibly the worst) piece of shit stirring, claiming Robbie didn’t have a chest infection, and that he didn’t report back for training because he’d been on a bender after the England game. It was completely untrue, and Robbie should have sued over it. If there was even the slightest element of truth in that story, you can bet your arse that the nationals would have picked up on it. The thing is though, this was so fictional that even the likes of the Daily Mail wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole.

Oldham and his mates seem to have a vendetta against Fowler, but this really was taking things too far. As he likes to inform us all on a regular basis, his website gets millions of hits from all over the world, and many of the visitors are gullible enough to believe every word Oldham tells them. With that in mind, I believe he has certain responsibilities, and printing shite like what he did about Fowler was a total f_cking disgrace. Robbie’s reputation was damaged by that article, as not everyone who read it will know the actual truth. In his Football Echo column, Chris Bascombe slammed the article written by Oldham, and set the record straight regarding Robbie. He wrote “I was sent an article this week by a reader which appeared on one unofficial Liverpool website which I won’t name because it doesn’t deserve the free ad it probably wants (Okay, I will. Apparently it’s called ******* or ******* or something like that.) They wrote an outrageous lie which dared to suggest Robbie’s absence on tuesday wasn’t because he was ill.”
There you have it, ‘an outrageous lie’, so anyone who read that knows the score, but sadly few people outside Merseyside will have had the chance to see it. Mind you, Oldham saw it, and responded to it in an editorial on his site. “I would like to thank local journo Chris Bascombe for a little mention recently. Obviously those of you outside the city may not know who Chris is. Well thanks to the internet’s global ability, even a local journo can get a mention on the other side of the world. Although saying that, I believe Chris contributes to the official LFC website so his articles may be already known to you if you can’t buy local supplements etc, admittedly his contributions tow the official line but anyone who gives the site a plug no matter how small will do for us”

Anyone seeing that who hadn’t read the article in the Pink Echo could be forgiven for thinking that Chris had given Oldham’s site a glowing endorsement. There’s no mention of the fact that Chris was criticising his site for an ‘outrageous lie’, and the whole thing smacked of unbelievable arrogance and smugness, two ‘qualities’ which Mr Oldham has in abundance. This lowlife didn’t even have the decency to say “I’m sorry, I got it wrong about Robbie and I owe him an apology,” and instead used Chris B’s words to slyly endorse his own site.

The Americans should give this prick a job, as with him on board they’d have no trouble winning the propaganda war (mind you, his views on freedom of speech would make him more at home in the Taliban camp, but more of that later). Had he apologised over what he had written about Fowler, then I wouldn’t be writing about it now. I’ve been tempted to write a piece about Oldham for some time now, but I’ve been holding back for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, I didn’t want to give him any kind of recognition whatsoever, as it’s publicity that seems to make him happy. Secondly, I didn’t want to come across as being petty by slagging off a fellow supporter. There’s a part of me that feels a bit uneasy about doing it now, but I could hold back no longer. Put it this way, if the Daily Mail had written what he did, then everyone would have been up in arms about it, so why should it be different simply because it appeared on what is supposed to be a pro-LFC website? The fact that TLW has it’s own website also means that any criticism of another website could be seen as some sort of professional jealousy. No doubt that’s what Oldham will put it down to anyway.

Anyone who dares criticise the almighty Dunc must be jealous. He even says so on his own personal webpage (a sickening piece of self indulgence which has to be seen to be believed). So let me say right now, I am not in any way shape or form, jealous of Duncan Oldham. What is there to be jealous of? Being reviled by many of your fellow supporters is not something I aspire to achieve. He may well make a lot of money from his website, but at what cost? Am I jealous of the fact that he drives a nice new Mercedes? Actually, no. I’ve never been interested in cars and have never even bothered sending off for my provisional license, so what good is a Merc to me! Am I jealous of the fact that he is apparently making money hand over fist?

Not really no, because I look at what he does to make that money. Of course we’d all like to be making more money than what we are (if there’s any players reading this, then you’re excluded from that remark as you earn more than enough already!), but at the same time we have to be able to look at ourselves in the Mirror. Maybe Oldham can justify his actions to himself, but to me he is no better than the scumbags who peddle lies in the national tabloid press. In fact, he’s worse, because he does it under the masquerade of being a fan. I’ve sat by and watched his attempts to exploit LFC fans with his priority membership scheme, his ‘buy shares in *******.com’ scam, his selling of two season tickets on a £1 a minute phoneline competition and countless other rip offs. “If people are gullible enough to fall for it then it’s their own fault” I reasoned.

The Fowler story, and Oldham’s subsequent smugness over it was the last straw though. It was complete and utter bullshit and he had to know that considering his mate supposedly runs the place where they were meant to be boozing until the early hours. Of course, Bullshit is how he makes his living. Who could forget the Sol Campbell “Exclusive” last summer? Dunc informed us that Sol had flown into Speke airport by private jet, and was whisked away to a hotel on the outskirts of the city centre for talks with the reds. He promised to keep everyone up to date with Campbell’s movements as he negotiated his big money deal to move to Anfield.

What he didn’t tell people was that Parry and Houllier were both out of the country on other business that day, and that Campbell was actually in London finalising his move to Arsenal. Funny though, he never admitting to getting that one wrong either.

His comments about Chris Bascombe would have been laughable if they weren’t so shockingly arrogant. Chris can’t really respond to it, as I doubt if the Echo would allow him to get embroiled in a war of words with someone like Oldham, but there’s nothing to stop me from doing it. Oldham remarked that “thanks to the internet’s global ability, even a local journo can get a mention on the other side of the world”. Yeah, and a f_cking arsehole like you can make a damn good living through writing scurrilous stories without any foundation or truth in them.

Perhaps the most comical line of Oldham’s rant though, was: “admittedly his contributions tow the official line….” By ‘towing the official line’ I presume he means visiting Melwood to speak with the manager EVERY day and contacting the relevant people at the club before printing a story to make sure that it is true. Oldham sits there in his little f_cking empire in Scarborough, miles away from what’s going on at the club, yet has the nerve to have a go at someone who is as well informed about what’s going on at the club as it’s possible for any ‘outsider’ to be. What are Oldham’s credentials? What contacts does he have at the club?

He’s currently running a little scam called ‘the insider’, where for a nominal fee (about £15 I believe) he’ll send you updates on what’s happening behind the scenes. He claims to have players, ex players, secretarial staff at the club as well as local and national journalists supplying him with inside info. Naturally, he can’t name names, so you just have to take his word for it that these people will reveal all kinds of inside info to Lord Duncan.

The only player that has any affiliation with the website is Richie Partridge, and the club should really put a stop to that (if they haven’t already). And the mere idea that local and national journo’s would have any association with him is comical. There’s as much chance of Chris Bascombe becoming a blue as there is of him supplying info to Oldham, and I’m sure Chris McLoughlin knows the score too. The Post’s Andy Hunter is a blue and wouldn’t even have the faintest idea who Oldham is, and any national journo worth his salt would keep any decent stories for his own paper, he certainly wouldn’t be passing them on to someone else.

The whole thing stinks, and I just hope people can see through it. I had no time for this parasite even before his latest Fowler ‘attack’, but now I hold him beneath contempt. I know that he’ll be reading this, if he doesn’t buy it himself then no doubt one of his toadies will send him a copy. He’d love nothing better than to get his solicitors onto me over this – he’s quite partial to legal threats apparently.

A Norwegian mate of mine, Torbjorn Flatin (the editor of ‘The Kopite’), has first hand experience of Oldham’s legal threats. Torbjorn was having a browse at Oldham’s site one day when he came across a photo of Frode Kippe which looked familiar. It was familiar, because it was from the Norwegian reds’ site (www.liverpool.no) which Torby is involved with. What’s more, Torbjorn had actually taken the picture himself with his own camera! He contacted Oldham to politely ask him that if he was going to take photo’s from his site, could he at least credit them with it. He didn’t say he couldn’t use them, and he didn’t ask for any money. He just wanted his site to be credited for the photo. Oldham responded by saying that the photo wasn’t from http://www.liverpool.no, and then threatened legal action. When Torby told him that he himself had taken the photo, and he could prove it, suddenly the legal threats were dropped!!! The man is a real piece of work. The really sad part of all this is that I, like many others, used to really like his site. Now it simply disgusts me.

I’ve also recently found out that he’s registered the domain name liverpoolway.com, as well as raotl.com and ttwar.com amongst others. He claimed that he did it as a favour to us, and it was to stop the domain names falling into the wrong hands! He’s all heart isn’t he? The fact that when you type in those names you are directed to HIS website suggests otherwise however. I don’t even want the “.com” address, and he’s welcome to it. If he’s so desperate to get hits to his site that he’ll stoop to such levels, then I pity him. He won’t be happy about this article, because he seems to think he should be above criticism. Anyone who goes on his forums and dares to question any of his ‘news’ articles immediately has their posts deleted, and if they persist they are banned. These people were referred to as ‘scum’ in a recent editorial by Oldham. He also claims that “there’s no such thing as freedom of speech.” Not on your forums there isn’t, that’s for sure. He runs his forums with a level of oppression that would make the Taliban blush. One Norwegian red had his post deleted for the heinous crime of stating that TLW is a good website! Can’t have any praise for any other LFC sites now can we, eh Dunk? Unfortunately for Oldham though, he can’t control what goes on other forums or what goes in fanzines, and he is now being exposed for what he really is. If he doesn’t like it, tough shit.

That bit about Fowler not having a chest infection – a journalist who actually saw Robbie with his chest infection said not only was it true he had a chest infection, it was a bad chest infection, he could hardly breathe because of it, let alone train. To make a story up that one of your own team’s players was suffering with an alcohol problem to that extent is low if you’re only telling your lies to your own friends. For a website owner making a fortune from Liverpool FC and its supporters it’s as low as low can be. It really is time he was stopped.

* There’s a mention above about Oldham’s share scam. He tried to make money by selling shares in Koptalk. If anyone has any information, especially any copies of emails from then, or just recollections, please let me know. Don’t worry, I’ll not reveal your name to anyone, unless you ask me to. koptalk.insider at gmail.com.

Note: Those who came here looking for the two posts on the Freddie Shepherd video by Koptalk please scroll down or go HERE

“Shut the door on your way out!”

That was the sneering headline on Duncan Oldham’s so-called “editorial” on his Koptalk website the day Robbie Fowler left LFC for Leeds on 28th November 2001.

He had stalked Fowler for two years conducting a hate campaign against him that is unequalled in the club’s history. It was mainly to create controversey for Oldham’s bandit website and put money in his pocket. But on that particular day he also acted with the desperation of the con man caught with his pants down.

Only two days before Oldham claimed that Fowler had called him to give him an exclusive that there was no truth in the stories that he was about to leave LFC. Oldham mocked the Liverpool Echo and all respectable journalists as fools for suggesting otherwise.

But it was Oldham who was the fool. He and his paying customers on Koptalk had not only been blindsided by his cynical lie but they were the last to know about the biggest outward transfer in modern times.

And history was to repeat itself. When Fowler returned to LFC in January 2006, Oldham and his paying customers on Koptalk were again the last to know. Days earlier he scoffed at the very idea.

That’s not much of a record from a guy who has pulled in hundreds of thousands of pounds (according to his own claims) from people who join Koptalk because it promises “exclusive information from inside Anfield” from anonymous “insiders” like “Wallet”, the “Anfield Mole” the “Informer” the”Horse” and a number of others who were none other than Oldham himself, at work in his lie factory in Scarborough and Wallsend.

In an attempt to recover the damage the Fowler affair did to his money-making business Oldham has tried many versions of his lie since. A couple of weeks ago hebanned Warren, one of the brightest paying members of Koptalk, for questioning Oldham’s lie that he knew that Parry and Moores signed Robbie Fowler as a PR stunt against Rafa’s wishes. HERE

You see glimpses of Oldham’s hatred of Fowler everywhere in the archives of his site. Even in his rave about what a great team Newcastle United would be if they got Michael Owen and how he, Oldham, was going to enjoy his two season tickets behind the goal at St-Jame’s Park, even then he could not leave out another dig at Fowler.

“If I was Michael Owen I’d opt for Newcastle purely because I’d be happy playing for 50,000+ fans who appreciated me week in, week out. At Liverpool the Kop cared more about the petulant Robbie Fowler frozen out in the stands (following a run-in with Phil Thompson) than they did a younger, fitter, leaner more professional Michael who was delivering on the pitch. No wonder Michael got upset when the Kop rarely sang his name…..” HERE

Why does Oldham hate Fowler? In my opinion, its an irrational jealousy that only a stalker like him could understand – it borders on the psychotic. He resented that Robbie was an Irish-Liverpool scouser, that he was popular, that he was as successful at the race track and in business and in his family as he was on the football field. Oldham would achieve none of these things and to compensate would exaggerate the value of that part of him that was English.

Nothing dramatizes Oldham’s distance from the ethos of LFC more than his hatred of Fowler. It is the same kind of contempt he shows for the people of Liverpool. Even his forced and exaggerate enthusiasms for Michael Owen – shown in his childish pursuit of Freddie Shepherd the other day. Owen was just another stick with which to beat Robbie.

And now Robbie is leaving the squad again. And once again Oldham did not know. And once again he must try to patch up the damage his blind hatred has done to his dying website.

So he issues another so-called editorial – another goodbye to Robbie Fowler. Its full of hypocrite’s poison. Its another attempt to repeat all the slander the heavy-drinking, over-eating Oldham invented and propagated during the years 1999-2001. He even misquotes a statement Houllier made about night clubs that he addressed at the time to Steve Gerrard as though Houllier had addressed it to Fowler.

Photo: Oldham waiting for meat pies after a few pints.

But in his attempt to cover the shit with honey so that the novice members of the Koptalk cult will swallow it, he gives away a clue to his self-destructive jealousy of Robbie – something I’ve mentioned before.

“He came from f*** all and that’s what makes his story so special. He did it, from the bottom to the top. But although he did it, he never forgot his roots.”

And you’ll never forgive him for it will you Oldham? Because you couldn’t do the same.

The doors of LFC will never be shut on Robbie Fowler and they will never be open to Oldham and Koptalk.

______________________________________________________

Note:

There are several detailed treatment on the blog of how Oldham stalked Fowler and used lies about him to build up the readership of Koptalk.

Possibly the most widely read on the blog is Anfield Exposed: Robbie Fowler denies transfer rumoursHERE

For a very long detailed description of Oldham’s scurrilous campaign against Robbie and his friend Steve McManaman in 1999-2001 go to the tool bar at the top – Get FowlerHere